Saint Vincent and the Grenadines was scheduled to compete at the 2016 Summer Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 7 September to 18 September 2016.
Contents
The Team
These Games were scheduled to be the first for Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. The NPC's Chief was Rudolph Daniel.
Funding and support
Funding issues proved a major challenge for Saint Vincent and the Grenadines participation at the 2016 Summer Paralympics. There were problems acquiring grant funding because of shortfalls in funds from the Brazilian organizers. This was in part a result of only 220,000 of the 2.5 million tickets to watch the Games in Rio being sold a month ahead of the Games. These issues put the country's participation at severe risk.
Disability classifications
Every participant at the Paralympics has their disability grouped into one of five disability categories; amputation, the condition may be congenital or sustained through injury or illness; cerebral palsy; wheelchair athletes, there is often overlap between this and other categories; visual impairment, including blindness; Les autres, any physical disability that does not fall strictly under one of the other categories, for example dwarfism or multiple sclerosis. Each Paralympic sport then has its own classifications, dependent upon the specific physical demands of competition. Events are given a code, made of numbers and letters, describing the type of event and classification of the athletes competing. Some sports, such as athletics, divide athletes by both the category and severity of their disabilities, other sports, for example swimming, group competitors from different categories together, the only separation being based on the severity of the disability.